With the advent of new technology and increasingly sophisticated personal electronic devices, entertainment and amusement gaming is diluting a share of the public's long-standing interest in wager-based casino gaming. In particular, younger players are less captivated by spinning slot machine reels and video poker games than were previous generations. New technology has enabled the development of vibrant interactive entertainment games that are often available at low cost or are even free but which provide a trove of new features. Further, these games may be played at the user's preferred time and location without the need to travel to a licensed gaming establishment.
The term “personal electronic device” or “PED”, denotes a class of portable devices generally comprising a compact but powerful computing engine coupled with additional specialized hardware. These devices are typically owned by users but may also be loaned or rented to users by third parties for their use. PED components typically include one or more processors, one or more memories including some of any of static RAM, dynamic RAM, flash memory, ROM, and PROM, at least one output device such as a display, one or more input device(s), and at least one high capacity battery. In many devices, an output device and an input device are combined in the form of a touch sensitive display configured to display images to the user and simultaneously receive input from the user by touching or swiping the face of the display. PEDs also typically comprise hardware, firmware, and software that provide users with the ability to capture, edit, and view high resolution digital camera images and video along with the ability to create and play sophisticated audio recordings. Other specialized components present in the majority of PEDs include one or more communication ports configured to provide data inputs and inputs via wired or wireless communication paths, accelerometers, lights, haptic devices, and the like. This description encompasses a wide variety of hardware devices available from an ever-increasing number of manufacturers.
PEDs are designed and configured by their manufacturers to execute one or more operating system(s) compatible with their specialized hardware. Conversely, it may be said that PED operating system(s) are written specifically for certain PED architectures and their specialized hardware. Either way, the principal distinction between different classifications of PEDs is the operating system (“OS”) running on the device. Said OS handles all of the intrinsic lower-level operations required by the hardware and thereby provides a consistent interface for applications independent of specific hardware.
Just as personal computers are primarily used to execute a variety of computer programs (often referred to as “applications”), PEDs are also primarily used to execute programs of many types which are often referred to as mobile applications or “mobile apps” due to the highly portable nature of the device. Mobile apps are available to perform a wide variety of useful functions; a woefully incomplete list of the most widely-used mobile apps would include those configured for making and receiving telephone calls, sending and receiving e-mail, recording and playing music or video, accessing content on the Internet including streaming audio and video, and playing entertainment or amusement games. Mobile apps written for a particular PED OS are generally compatible with all PED hardware running that particular OS, so specific hardware component differences between PEDs of different manufacture are usually not consequential to the design of mobile apps running on the various devices.
PEDs typically comprise multiple electronic communication ports that support a variety of wired and wireless protocols. Most notably, the vast majority of PEDs are configured to operate via one or more of the terrestrial-based common carrier technologies loosely categorized as “mobile communication” or “cellular communication”. As a result, the majority of PEDs are referred to as “phones” by their owners and are frequently used to access common carrier communication resources by their owners. Via the Internet, PEDs are capable of almost all of the same data transmission and retrieval functions as are more powerful and sophisticated devices.
In addition to common carrier capability, most PEDS are also configured to communicate via other technologies such as Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, infrared transmission and reception, and the like, and these protocols enable the devices to access other PEDS, peripherals, electronics, third party resources, or even household appliances. Given the increasing capability of PEDs and the exploding quantity of mobile apps they support, additional uses are rapidly being developed for PEDs due to their capability and configurability as communication devices.
The wager-based electronic gaming machine (“EGM”) is well known in the art and offers players an opportunity to place a wager using cash or a cash equivalent in return for an opportunity to receive a cash or cash equivalent award calculated according to posted odds based on a random gaming outcome. EGMs are highly specialized computing and electromechanical devices comprising one or more processors, memories, network communication capability, one or more user input devices, one or more output devices, one or more power supplies, sophisticated anti-tampering and fraud monitoring devices, and comprehensive security means embedded throughout each of the EGM's various subsystems to ensure operation of the machine in a manner consistent with the design of the game in compliance with all applicable gaming laws and regulations of the jurisdiction in which it is licensed. Due to the fact that EGMs may accept and dispense large quantities of cash or cash equivalents, security is paramount in their design and operation.
As with PEDs, EGMs may also be configured to offer a myriad of games, including but not limited to mechanical spinning reel slot machine games, all-video depictions of spinning reel slot machine games, video poker, video depictions of other card-based games, keno, adventure games, arcade-style games, role-playing games, and the like. EGMs are manufactured around the world by a number of companies licensed to do so by one or more gaming jurisdictions.
While EGMs are sold or leased as an operative unit comprising hardware, firmware and software necessary to provide low level operation of said hardware along with high level software and firmware necessary to execute one or more games on the EGM, the game software and firmware may benefit from or be dependent on some degree of third party development or administration for at least a portion of the EGM's execution. A well-known example of this dependence include EGMs linked to IGT's progressive “Megajackpots®” slot series, where very high value jackpots are funded and awarded across a base of machines disposed at many separate locations. Data communications pertaining to the value of the jackpots presently available to be won, the amount of funding provided by each machine toward the progressive jackpot to be awarded, and ultimately the selection of the machine to which the jackpot will be awarded must be communicated to each of the participating machines on a recurring basis. In this sense, EGMs linked to Megajackpots® are dependent on communication with external resources for their proper operation.
Unlike PEDs operating on common carrier networks, and with very few exceptions, EGMs are universally configured to communicate only with authorized servers within the confines of a highly secured gaming network typically confined to a single physical establishment. In some cases, the secured gaming network may comprise more than one physical establishment, but in those cases the secured network is usually operative to include all such establishments within the topology of said network, effectively forming a single secured network comprising network components disposed at multiple locations. While PEDs typically communicate within common carrier (such as cellular) networks where access by and to other devices is only loosely controlled, access to networks supporting EGMs is very tightly controlled to prevent unauthorized access to the devices on the network and the data they share.
The amounts of payouts for all specific gaming outcomes are computed by the developer of each game generally based on the odds of achieving such payouts and are inversely related. That is, the odds of a patron receiving a smaller payout based on any specific outcome are much greater than the odds of the patron receiving a larger payout. Correspondingly, there are many small payouts awarded during game play and significantly fewer large payouts since the odds of awarding larger payouts are much smaller than those associated with smaller payouts.
Wagering games may also be described in terms of their “volatility”. Games that provide patrons with slightly better odds of receiving a larger payout while simultaneously providing slightly worse odds of receiving a smaller payout are said to have a higher volatility than other games which are configured to provide a greater number of smaller payouts with a concomitant decrease in the odds of awarding a larger payout.
An important consideration in any wagering game is the advantage enjoyed by the house. While the percentage of money wagered on a particular machine that is returned to players calculated over time will vary based on the many factors, including the gaming operator's preference, EGMs are carefully designed and configured to retain a known, predetermined percentage of the total wagers to insure profitability for the machine.
Given the demographic shift toward entertainment and amusement games played on PEDS and away from legacy casino games, what is needed are systems and methods that provide a nexus between mobile game applications and casino wager-based games that, among other advantages, introduce users of mobile applications the excitement of wager-based casino gaming. This may be accomplished by providing hardware systems and game methods of a common theme suitable for play on both PEDs and EGMs, where one particularly notable advantage of providing versions of a common theme game operating on each platform is that said game versions are configured to advance the players' status on the wager-based game via play of the mobile application.